


Brighter

by wigglebox



Series: Supernatural - Season 15 Coda Fics [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Birthday, Canon Compliant, Gen, John Winchester Being an Asshole, Kid Dean Winchester, Kid Sam Winchester, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26936149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wigglebox/pseuds/wigglebox
Summary: “We often confuse what we wish for with what is.”― Neil Gaiman, MirrorMask
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Supernatural - Season 15 Coda Fics [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1514216
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	Brighter

**One**

On Dean's sixth birthday, Ms. Debbie, who supervised the children's play area at Fun World, brought in a small chocolate cake. 

It was an elaborate, decorated cake that Dean thought was very nice looking, and he had been told to not touch things that looked that nice. If he broke it, he bought it, that's what their dad said.

But, Ms. Debbie assured Dean that it was his cake because it was his birthday that day. The surrounding kids gathered around the snack table, hoping for whatever scrap of cake and sugary frosting they could get. They all had wished Dean a happy birthday after their dad dropped him and Sam off for the day, and one of the kids, Dean didn't know their name, even gave him a rock as a present. 

Dean thanked them because polite boys say thank you and remembered their manners, but he still had to catch up to the fact that it was his birthday. He had no idea what day it was when he woke up, and his dad didn't wish him a happy birthday or give him a rock or any other kind of present. 

The shock wore off quickly, and within an hour after he arrived, Dean watched as Ms. Debbie stuck six tall, skinny candles in the cake.

She struck a match and carefully lit the candles, which soon sizzled and sparked like the things Dean got to play with over the summer. 

Hungry, Dean leaned forward to blow the candles out. He didn't get to do this for his other birthday. They had spent the day in the car, but Dean couldn't remember where they went, only that Sam was sick and spit up all over Dean's lap in the car. His dad did wish him a happy birthday as he cleaned Sam up with a laugh, which made Dean laugh. No cake, though.

"Hang on kiddo," Ms. Debbie laughed, holding Dean back. "You have to make a wish!" 

Dean looked up at her, confused. He didn't remember that being part of the rules. 

"Before you blow them out, you have to make a birthday wish," Ms. Debbie explained, smiling in that way that made Dean want to smile back. "Wish for whatever you want!"

"Will I get it?" Dean asked, wondering if he did that, then Ms. Debbie would come out of the backroom with whatever he wanted like she did when he had asked for slinky to play with the other day. She had said it was only for the good kids, and that Dean was a good kid, which in turn made Dean handle it so carefully that he flinched when he dropped it as he walked it back to her.

Ms. Debbie shrugged and nodded at the cake, "Depends on how hard you wish for it."

Dean swallowed and nodded, feeling uncomfortable. What did he want? He wanted cake, but he already had a cake. He wanted his brother there, but he was in the toddler room, taking a nap. He wanted his father there, but at the same time, he didn't; Dean didn't feel good around his dad sometimes.

Glancing around him, he saw the kids staring at the cake with intense focus, hoping to be one of the few who could get a slice. Only the one that gave him a rock, Dean still couldn't remember their name, looked at him, waiting with anticipation for Dean to make his wish. 

Dean paused before inhaling as deep as his small lungs could manage before blowing the candles out. A voice shouted in his head, as loud as it could, at whoever it was that would give him what he wanted:

I WANT A FRIEND. I WANT A FRIEND. I WANT A FRIEND. 

**Two**

On his eleventh birthday, Dean stayed up until the very early morning hours as he watched a blizzard roar past their motel room. The wind had been scaring Sam, and when Sam couldn't sleep, he made sure Dean wouldn't either. Eventually, Sam passed out around two in the morning, too tired to remain scared.

But, by the time Sam settled down, Dean still laid on the bed, wide awake. 

It was technically his birthday now. 

Their dad had left late in the afternoon, and he didn't tell Dean where he was going, only that he'd be back by the morning. The promise would go unfulfilled, Dean realized as he watched the torrent of snow billow around under the orange parking lot light. The TV weatherman predicted nearly two feet of snow for upstate New York. Their dad was resourceful, but that car wouldn't make it through that kind of a mess. Only two weeks prior, he had tried driving through a few inches that fell in Ohio, and the car slid so much they had to pull over to the side of the road until a state plow rolled through three hours later.

Dean sighed and debated turning the TV on. He could keep it low so he didn't wake Sam, but Dean considered if he should even spare the energy. It was four in the morning and he didn't know what channels the motel had. One time, when Dean was unable to sleep due to a cold, he had once turned the TV on while his dad and Sam slept. Immediately, loud music had filled the room and Dean was greeted by a smiling lady with yellow hair and no clothing on. 

Horrified, he had tried to shut it off, but it was too late. John woke up, grabbed the remote out of his hand, and hauled him back to bed, yelling at Dean about adult movie something and "What if Sam saw that?". Dean didn't understand what he saw himself, but he was not given TV permissions for a month after that. 

As Dean listened to the wind rattle the motel room door, he decided the TV wasn't worth it. 

Instead, Dean stared at the ceiling as the hour ticked on. The last week had been rough with their dad grumpier than usual, and they left their most recent school, which bugged Dean a lot. He met Jamie and Carl, two people who immediately pulled Dean into their friend group. They had even given him a Christmas present that included numerous Batman comic books. 

But he and Sam had gone back to the rental home they had for a few months to find John packing, saying they had to leave that night. 

Dean never got to say goodbye. 

Jamie and Carl had promised Dean cupcakes and his history teacher planned on a party, something she did with every students' birthday. 

But there was no cake, no celebration, no anything. Sam will eventually wish Dean a happy birthday, once Dean reminded him. __If__ Dean reminded him. 

Staring at the mysterious spot on the motel ceiling, Dean didn't know if he wanted to say anything at all.

Maybe it was for better that Dean just forgot about his birthday this year. Maybe next year would be better. Maybe when he woke up in the morning… 

Dean's thoughts faded as he drifted off to sleep, the winds still howling outside. 

The next day, Dean woke up to an empty and freezing room. The door swung in the wind, and it took him a moment to realize that __holy shit__ , __the door was open__. He looked around to confirm Sam was gone before jumping out of bed, almost tripping as he pulled on his shoes. 

Panic flooded Dean as he grabbed his coat, mind racing. As he threw the door fully open, doubt and fear cascaded over him. Did he remember to lock the door last night? Did their father come back and take Sam somewhere? Did something else get to Sam?

The snowdrifts were high against the motel, but shallow areas remained. It was there Dean saw the tread of Sam's boots lead down the concrete sidewalk outside, past all the buried cars, and around the building. Dean followed, heart still in his throat.

Turning the corner, Dean saw Sam kneeling in the deep snow, wearing what looked like two pairs of pants, boots, two sweatshirts, a hat, and his only pair of mittens. 

Sam was crouched in front of a mound of snow, patting another fistful into the shape. Dean couldn't tell what it was, assuming Sam was trying to make a snowman. The panic began to dissipate.

They weren't an artistic family, but Sam managed to make a circular mock-up of what would have been a cake if made of different materials. It wasn't the best replica, but it had little squiggles for decoration. As Dean got closer, he saw Sam put on the finishing touches, writing Dean's name carefully, frowning in concentration. 

Sam didn't look up until Dean stopped right in front of him. 

"I was gonna wake you up," Sam explained, packing more snow into the side of the small sculpture that had collapsed while he wrote. "I wasn't done."

Next to Sam laid a candle, a standard white one that almost blended in with the snow. Dean remembered seeing it on a stand accompanied by others in the motel check-in lobby.

Dean didn't like to cry and was usually good at holding it until he was in private, or at least wasn't being looked at. He mostly did anything possible to not show any __hint__ of a tear near Sam or their father. That wasn't a thing their family did, along with making arts and crafts.

But Dean stood in front of Sam, the only person who was there that morning to wish him a happy birthday, and felt his throat close like someone grabbed it with their hand, squeezing tight. It was a sign that if it were any other situation, would signal to Dean to go find a place on his own away from people. This morning though, Dean stayed. 

"The lady wouldn't give me a thing," Sam said, standing and wiping the excess snow off his pants, sneezing again.

"What?" Dean asked, trying his hardest to keep the tears building from falling. 

Sam, ignoring Dean's emotional reaction, pointed to the candle on the ground. 

"That's supposed to be on--on fire," Sam explained, sneezing once more. Dean wondered how long Sam had actually been outside working on his creation but knew if he didn't get them both back inside soon, they'd both wind up sick. 

"That's... okay, alright hang on," Dean said. He turned and ran along the back of the building to the sliding glass door to their motel room. He took the key out, slid it open, and immediately went to his bag. In the front pocket, buried among candy wrappers and other random items, was the lighter he found on the ground outside the gas station a month ago. He didn't tell anyone he had it, knowing that it would immediately be taken away if their father found out. 

But these were special circumstances. 

Grabbing the lighter, Dean ran back outside, back to Sam who had already stuck the candle in the snow-cake. 

Sam said nothing as Dean tried a couple times to get the lighter to work. Dean finally sparked a small flame, warming that one particular part of his hand, and held it over the wick of the candle.

The snow underneath was already beginning to melt with the heat, and Dean had to work fast. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and ignored Sam's "What are you doing?"

 _ _I wish we can stay in one spot for a while__ , Dean thought, repeating it three times, just in case. He was sick of waking up and not remembering where they were; He was tired of having to stand in front of a new class every few weeks and introduce himself, coming up with a lie about a life he didn't live; He was sad for Sam who already struggled to make friends wherever they went.

And he was scared for how long all of this would last. 

**Three**

Turning 23 was nothing worth celebrating. 

It wasn't a milestone, it wasn't earth-shattering, and there was nothing different from the previous day when Dean was 22. 

Even more unfortunate for Dean was the fact that he wasn't supposed to be drinking alone at a middle-of-no-where bar on his birthday. 

For the first time since he could remember, possibly ever, he was looking forward to his birthday. Lee, not just two months prior, had promised a night full of partying, bar hopping, a strip club maybe, or maybe they would have bypassed the strip club and gone right back to the motel. 

"It's depressing you never had a real birthday party," Lee had said at the time on their way out of Las Vegas, heading to Georgia.

"Yeah, but are you surprised?" Dean countered, staring at the dark desert rushing past as Lee took his turn behind the wheel. 

No, Lee had said, he wasn't surprised, hence the promise of making Dean's next one something he could actually enjoy. 

And all that crumbled away a short time after they arrived in Georgia after his dad found them, and the car, [and promptly yanked Dean back to reality.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21626230)

Dean finished his fifth drink and pushed it aside, looking down the bar to try and get the bartender's attention. 

He came over, narrowing his eyes as he took in the mess around Dean.

"I'm gonna have to ask for your keys," he said, holding out his hand. 

Dean rolled his eyes, "I'm staying at the place next door. I don't have my keys on me."

The bartender still looked suspicious, and Dean dug into his pocket to pull out his room key. 

"Alright, fine. I'm gonna have to shut you off at some point, though," the bartender conceded. He was older than Dean, but it didn't seem too big of an age gap. The guy had no gray or distinguishable lines on his face; Probably late 20's or early 30's. 

"You're a little young to be my father, but thanks," Dean said, pulling out his wallet. "I just want one more."

"What's the occasion? I don't see people party this hard unless--"

"It's my birthday," Dean mumbled, tossing some money onto the table. 

The bartender, who Dean had been trying to remember the name of for the last two minutes, frowned as his suspicion melted away into something even worse. 

Pity. 

"Don't give me a look, just give me a drink."

The bartender, Mark or Michael, something with an 'M', kept his frown in place but turned around and got Dean another beer bottle. None of that "in a glass" bullshit. He slid it to Dean without a word and walked away. 

Dean said nothing in return and went to work to see how fast he could drink it and if it'll finally do the trick of leading him to a black void of consciousness he very much wanted. 

But the bartender wasn't finished. He returned with a small blue candle with a green spiral, a typical birthday candle, and a lighter in his other hand. 

Dean put his drink down and shook his head, "Come on dude, it's not necessary."

"I don't have a cake or anything really since the kitchen closed, but I take birthdays seriously," the bartender said, lighting the candle and holding it in his fingers. "Make a wish."

A burst of laughter forced its way out of Dean at the absurdity of a grown-ass man holding up a tiny candle and telling him to make a wish. 

"Let's go, the wax is gonna melt my hand soon," the bartender said, smiling. He had a friendly smile, Dean noted. He looked far less intimidating while smiling.

Dean leaned in a little more, closer to the man, and closed his eyes, trying to grasp some kind of thought in his alcohol-ridden brain. 

All he could come up with was that the bartender was closer and that he had a very nice smile. Whatever that meant.

Dean tried stringing together a sentence that started with "I wish," but all his brain would offer was "bed" and "fuck”. 

Good enough. 

He opened his eyes and blew out the flame just as a bead of hot wax started to meander its way down. 

The bartender (what was his damn __name__?) sighed and threw the candle into a wastebasket underneath the counter. 

"What'd you wish for?" he asked a small smile still on his face, almost like he heard Dean's thought. Dean wondered if he actually said his wish out loud for the whole bar to hear. 

Maybe for once, Dean would have a wish come true.

"I think you may already know that answer," Dean answered, smirking, leaning in closer too and resting on his elbows. 

The bartender, (Mitchell?), huffed a small laugh and looked down at the counter before suddenly moving away again, grabbing Dean's empty bottles. 

"You should have thought about that before you drank half my stock away," he said, that smile turning sour on his face and shrugging. Dean watched, whiplashed, as the bartender walked away and deposited his glasses into a sink before waiting on another patron. 

Whatever small bit of happiness his brain had tried summoning evaporated in an instant. Dean stood, face hot with embarrassment and anger building rapidly. He didn't look up to see where the guy was he stood, shoved his wallet into his pocket, and stumbled out.

**Four**

There was no cake, no candle, no anything in front of Dean now. 

He sat alone at the kitchen table, watching as he spun the lighter around on the surface. Technically there was still some of Jack's cake leftover, wrapped up and sitting in the fridge, but that was for Cas whenever he got back. 

And baking sucked. Dean wasn't doing it twice in one day only to make himself a pity cake. 

They also had candles left, but Dean didn't feel like going into the closet to dig one out, especially since he had nothing to stick it in.

He hadn't made a birthday wish in a long time. Dean couldn't actually remember the last time he stopped and acknowledged he was another year older. For a brief, horrifying moment earlier, as Ms. Butters had handed him the treats he asked for, Dean couldn't even remember how old he was. 

Over more than a decade, the concept of a birthday grew more foreign to Dean. 

It was made clear time and time again that the day he and Sam landed on this planet was not something that should be celebrated. It was only done for a third party's benefit anyway.

And now, as Dean sat at the table, the mess he said he'd clean up still on the counter, the idea of having a birthday was even more ludicrous. With everything they had learned in the last several months, it was just sprinkles on top of a gigantic shit pile and confirmed to Dean even more that--

 _ _Stop it__.

The voice in the back of his head slammed the wall down on those intrusive thoughts, knowing where it'd take him and knowing the amount of effort it'd take to climb back out of the pit.

Once he had paid attention to it, Dean realized those thoughts were always worse when Cas wasn't there to intercept the late-night panic attacks that would cause Dean to wander into various rooms at night, attempting to walk it off.

Progress had been made, and Dean acknowledged that. The anger didn't boil over so fast; the abject fear he really __really__ tried to push down was also keeping steady. It didn't cross over the line anymore, causing emotional dominoes to fall into doing something reckless.

But it all waited for him in the shadows, around the corner, at random moments, ready to attack. 

The lighter continued to spin on the table.

Dean had made his peace in his early 20's that he wouldn't have made it this far, considering the business they were in, and convinced himself even more as time went on, and as everything just got __worse__ , that he really wouldn't make it this far. 

Turned out he didn't need to think that, because there was always someone behind the curtain pulling strings so he'd live another year, and another year, and another year--

Sighing, Dean lifted the lighter and flicked it on and off a few times. The thoughts were quieting down and melting into each other to become a faded overall sense of melancholy. He hated that feeling. The was a time he'd embrace it as something familiar, as something that was inherently his own and comforting in a strange way, but now...

Dean couldn't remember the situation or context, but Cas had once told him that wishes were just prayers in disguise. More superficial sometimes like "I wish for a pony" or "I wish to win the lottery", but uttering a wish for things like health, prosperity, and anything else, could easily be switched to a prayer. 

But now Dean didn't trust who else was listening to them. The "wish granter" was also the same one pulling strings. The only person he'd direct prayers to could still hear them, but he still had the eye of Sauron on him.

The flame turned back on, and Dean held it in front of his face, trying to sort through the tangled web of thoughts in his mind, trying to find something to pray for. He had plenty of ideas, plenty of things he's wanted to say, but none of them were things he wanted to be overheard. After their trip to Purgatory, and after Dean acted on that overwhelming sense of panic and fear, he had ceased the amount of praying that he did. He'd sometimes fire one or two off on the nights Cas wouldn't be with them in the past, but those stopped now. Having conversations face to face was how they were going forward. It was safer, it was tangible, it was knowing that Cas could actually hear him, react to what Dean was saying, and vise versa. 

__Stop it now__. 

Dean was going back into the anxiety void again.

Sighing, he stared at the flame, ignoring the growing heat in his hand. What did he want to wish for? What did he want to pray for? There were things that he definitely wanted, from the superficial like Cas had said, to the abstract. 

Some of them were things he only just recently allowed to come out of the depths of his mind, but they were still too fragile to bring up in prayer, or wish, or to Cas's face. 

Another moment went by as Dean tried to put the lid on the "what if" clusterfuck in his head before realizing there was no point. 

He flipped the lighter back off and left it on the table as he went to clean up the dishes. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well hello there! We're back!  
> I want to say first I hope you're all doing well, and doing the best you can right now (which, if that means just getting out of bed then that's fantastic!).  
> Second, I apologize there are no coda fics for 15x12 or 15x13 before I had put this one up. Due to the way the year has gone, I am currently living back home with my mom and writing is difficult. Even writing this was hard, and I'm also working on my DCBB which is taking all of my energy and brainpower (November 19th!).  
> I do hope to be living somewhere new by November anyway, so I'm hoping that if I can't get 15x12 and 15x13 here, then I will def. get it when I can write in quiet again at my actual desk. 
> 
> All that being said, I am 1000000% super duper happy we are able to get these episodes airing again. I actually forgot a lot of spoilers from last winter when they FILMED all this stuff so it's all kind of a surprise for me! lol. 
> 
> I did absolutely love 15x14 and thought it was a good way to get back into the show. A forced 6 month hiatus was on no one's wishlist. I wanted to focus on birthdays because while I know Dean is a big ol' holiday fan in general, especially for Christmas, it makes me sad knowing his birthdays growing up were not great. Also, as I'm writing this, I'm also remembering all of our birthdays this year, those without birthdays in January and February, that got stunted and plans suddenly canceled.
> 
> This is UNBETAD by the way! So any and all mistakes you may see please kindly let me know! 
> 
> I'm working on another fic, and I did sign up for pinefest this year again as well! I can't wait to get back to my writing desk. 
> 
> Hope you're all doing well! <3 Jen [tumblr/twitter - wigglebox]
> 
> Photo by Jordane Mathieu | Unsplash


End file.
